


To Love a God

by Cadilus (Ahsurika)



Category: Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika | Puella Magi Madoka Magica
Genre: Angst, Being Homura Is Suffering, Blood and Violence, Canon-Typical Violence, Confrontations, Drama, F/F, Gen, Madoka's Wish, Madokami, Major Character Injury, Minor Miki Sayaka/Sakura Kyoko, Multi, Post-Canon, Puella Magi Madoka Magica Spoilers, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-19
Updated: 2017-05-19
Packaged: 2019-03-20 21:48:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13726650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ahsurika/pseuds/Cadilus
Summary: "All she wants for me is the best, and I'm grateful to her, forever and always. But she has to face my wish. She has to know how I feel." The final confrontation between Homura and Madoka. Post-Rebellion, oneshot.





	To Love a God

  _Tick._

Because of what she is, the goddess sees it all.

_Tick. Tick._

Every time she saved the dark-haired girl, flying in with a bow of light and a pink-frilled dress and furrowed brow, each time dying in the scattered debris of a storm-shattered ruin.

_Tick. Tick._

The dark-haired girl's promise to her, and all she did to fulfill it. The jumps, the pain, the endless hunt and reset clocks. Futile arguments with their friends, words poured like sand into a bottomless glass as the realization festered inside her like a tumor, a noxious seed that grew into something terrible and poisonous.

A single shot from a shuddering pistol.

_Tick. Tick._

One last time, the dark-haired girl's efforts for nothing. Broken, beaten, battered. Giving up, soul gem flooding with ink toward its inevitable conclusion…until  _she_ arrived and made the wish that turned a schoolgirl into the divine.

That forced this very schoolgirl to leave her friends behind.

_Tick. Tick._

Their reunion, joyous, as she saved the dark-haired girl from drowning in the well of despair. The Incubators tried to entrap her but she outsmarted them, she and her friends turned it around, they rescued the dark-haired girl from a fate worse than death.

And then —

_Tick._

_And then. I reached out my hand, but the dark-haired girl was a demon._

Because of what she is, she can see them now, fighting deep in the twisted mists of the demon's labyrinthine reality. Mami, rips lining her outfit but not a single golden hair out of place, unleashes a stream of bullets at an infinite horde of squirming, screaming forms. Ruthlessness blazes in her hard eyes to mirror her rifles' rapid flash. As the eldest of the team, she made it her duty to protect them. She will see that duty to the end.

Sayaka, fury in her face, leaps to and fro, her sword slashing through the writhing mass of shadow and ink that reaches out to envelop her. She's lost something precious and gained something else. It's obvious in the way she fights, the way she thrusts and spins her sword about instead of sweeping it in broad, precise strokes. Not a conductor's baton, a swashbuckler's weapon. Her desire has changed, subtly: her wish points no longer at a boy and his violin, but toward apple cores and sarcastic prayers.

Kyoko is always by her side, scarlet dress and hair disguising well her wounds as her spear twirls protectively around her partner. A half-smile lights her face, even as blood mingles with sweat in a river that drains her strength but not her will. This is the storybook ending she never thought could exist for her, battling by the side of the one she holds dear. Death, when it comes, will be a triumph.

They fight for their goddess, she knows, for the Law they follow and the leader they believe in, and they're strong. The fate lines that bound so many realities to her affected them as well. Their varied hopes and wishes, the product of repeating the same month over and over, have complicated and enriched the reasons they became magical girls so much that they're now some of the strongest the universe has ever known.

They don't stand a chance.

Oily fabric floats about it, pale purples and sickly greens shimmering at its liquid edges. Within the shadows, the demon's tall body stands proud and erect, carved from marble and clothed in smoke. An aristocratic wave directs the neverending stream of familiars, encircling the trio of magical girls in crisp patterns. From this distance it's clear that the demon is holding back. Not out of reluctance to harm, but to wring out from them every last drop of hope.

The goddess can end it.

She is the Law of Cycles. Her wish, the wish that freed all magical girls from their doom, binds her tighter than any chain. When a magical girl falls, Madoka destroys the darkness and takes the girl, rescuing them from eternal suffering. This one embraced the shadows in her heart and laid claim to her despair, commanding it, shaping it. Girl and demon, desperate wish and triumphant despair, both must be destroyed because they are one and the same.

The goddess has the power to stop this. But Madoka doesn't know if _she_ can.

This isn't just some demon.

This is  _her_.

Kyoko is caught again, a spear flung from three hundred yards picking her up by the gut and hurling her into the wall. Blood splatters behind her in a grisly painting. Sayaka calls out and tries to leap to her friend's aid, but she's stumbling, a multitude cuts draining her of strength as the shadowy blades — held by cackling familiars, Madoka can see them clearly — flying around her duck her flailing sword and open the skin on her arms, her legs, her neck. The demon doesn't hesitate: in a blink it is behind the falling crusader, arms encircling Sayaka's body in a lover's embrace —

Madoka gasps. "Homura,  _don't_!"

The smoky shadow hears her. It drops its prey and looks up, its curtain of hair drawing back to reveal the face of Madoka's best friend.

It's almost worse that she looks the same as she always has. Her parted lips carry a cruel twist, inviting entry to a forbidden labyrinth, and her eyes blaze with the dark fire of battle, but it's the same face that has looked at Madoka with the full kaleidoscope of human emotion a dozen times over. The girls they've been to each other, the allies and friends and strangers and enemies — Homura's face holds it all, framed with love, and pity, and the zealotry of the disciple.

"So you came after all," Homura murmurs, and Madoka hears the regret-laden words as clearly as if her best friend stood right next to her and not half a dimension away.

" _Madoka, stay away!_ " Sayaka's voice warbles faintly, distant, heard from underwater. She's crawling on undulating waves of white thread, a wide crimson trail marking her path. Not far from her struggle, Kyoko shimmies on the spear that pins her, twisting her innards around the glistening haft. " _Madoka, you can't save her! You have to run!_ "

Homura's eyes narrow. At a snap of her fingers Sayaka jolts sharply, her spine cracking with a ripple like gunfire as her body folds backward on itself.

Kyoko screams, a bellow of anguish and hatred thickened by the blood that fills her lungs and mouth. She finally pushes herself off the spear, falling to the ground just as a swarm of enemies descends upon her. A chorus of gunfire temporarily hurls them back as Mami tries to hold them at bay, but the golden veteran can't win with her attention and ribbons divided. Slowly the rifle-fire slackens, petering out as its source is overwhelmed.

Three naked soul gems fall to the interdimensional labyrinth's floor.

The demon's jagged mouth promises the end.

_No._

Something swells within Madoka, a great vastness that is more than power or energy, a wholeness with an ever-expanding void. She can't contain it, can't measure it, she is  _breathing_  this universe into being. Her soul slices through Homura's labyrinth like a hot knife through butter, ripping back the blinds of this carefully controlled reality and exposing the demon's nightmares to the dawn. An orchestra of creation builds in her ears until the cacophony is all that exists —

Bereft of its supports, Homura's world crumbles into darkness.

###

_Her heart is breaking._

_It's not as if she hadn't known this day would come — quite the contrary. Fate had decreed it the moment Homura had tied Madoka's ribbon, fingers gently touching that loose pink hair with the promise of war. Perhaps earlier, when she had dared rise against her loving god. Her friend's divinity could only be caged for so long because it was a part of Madoka herself, a part that Homura had inadvertently nurtured by protecting her month after month, timeline after timeline._

_That much is clear to her, now: Madoka the goddess and Madoka the girl were always one and the same. The wish made the Law and the ideal the action, each reinforcing the other in an infinite loop of revolving galaxies, bright stars, and the hollow emptiness of knowing that one's friend is gone forever._

_None of that matters._

_Homura is about to raise arms against the girl she swore to shield._

_And she will do it without hesitation. She has chosen her role in this drama and set the stage because Madoka must decide to_ live _. And decide she must: though girl and goddess are the same being, they cannot coexist. Here, in this infinite void between worlds, she will force Madoka to choose. One last time._

_Rising curtains lift the darkness to an endless landscape of harsh white light. Homura cries out without voice, her soul curling defensively to guard against the opening salvo, but it's not an attack. The goddess is just moving the stage. Even as she hides her eyes from the blinding light it fades, revealing the dark blues of vacuum punctuated by cherry blossom stars._

_This isn't what the universe looks like in any physical reality. This is how Madoka chooses to see it._

_She falls for Madoka all over again, even as she hates her for bringing the two of them to the goddess' plane of existence. Madoka is no strategist — the goddess is simply choosing the battleground that feels right. Then Homura catches herself, her heart full to bursting, because of course Madoka doesn't even view this as a field of conflict. In her eyes, Homura knows, she's taking her best friend home. To_ her _home._

This is my advantage. She is stronger by far, but she does not want to fight me.

_And this is an unacceptable weakness. She cannot show mercy, cannot play favorites. If she does, she will fall._

As she did to me once.

As she will once more.

###

The goddess exhales the heat of a thousand suns, inhales the hopes of every being that has ever lived. Her skin tingles with the energy of a universe racing away from itself. When the magical girl reordered the universe and became hope itself, she also became its justice.

Homura chuckles sweetly into her fingertips.

"Such a stern face!" she says theatrically. Disgust streaks her twisted expression. "We both know it's not real. The goddess would strike without mercy, and you? You have always held me blameless. So what is this glare? Neither you nor she can intimidate me with half-measures. Spare us both."

Madoka shakes her head. "You have it wrong, Homura." She lifts her hands, weighing words as heavy as dying stars. "I'm the Law of the Cycle. There's no difference between it and me. I wished it, and I am it. It's what I always wanted to be."

She's speaking from her heart. When she became a magical girl, all she did was gain the power to do what she'd always wished for.

Homura spits. Darkness billows from her to shroud the night around them. "Don't you  _dare_  lie to me," she hisses, freezing galaxies in their orbits. "I was  _there_ , I was therewhen you told me to keep you from making a contract, to save you. And I  _did_."

_A girl on the beach, shaking violently, the screech of a shattering heart wrenching itself from her lips._

**_BANG._ **

The goddess' rage crashes and breaks on walls of truth. A shimmer passes across space-time as uncertainty laps at her heart. "I said those words out of despair," Madoka protests. She knows how hollow her honesty sounds, and Homura doesn't fail to pick up on it.

"There's  _truth_  in despair, Madoka," Homura replies. She steps closer to Madoka, violet eyes full of yearning. "I've felt it. You've regretted becoming a magical girl ever since that time, but you don't know how to escape those bonds by yourself. Let me help you."

"You chained me!" Madoka yells, divine wrath boiling up once more.

"You chained yourself!" Homura screams back. The infinite space between them trembles, tense. "You wanted to save everyone, but you  _can't_. If you try, you're not  _you_  anymore. You can't live a normal life. You can't live  _any_  life. And there's no world where the goddess can be happy."

She crosses her arms, resolute. "I swore never to allow that to happen, and I have the strength to see it through. You —"

"My first wish was to revive a cat."

Homura cuts off. Madoka swallows hard in the sudden silence. "That's it. When I first contracted, before you met me, before I knew anything about what it would mean. I just couldn't bear to see it hurt. I didn't plan to become this, but after I'd learned everything that I had, I chose it."

The cycle is in the galaxies all around her, every member of every species that has ever existed living and dying and living again. "I can't keep people from feeling pain, and I...I won't try. I just want to be there to answer it, so that it doesn't win. So that prayers are rewarded."

The darkness surrounding Homura wavers and fades, leaving the girl herself standing, looking terribly forlorn. "You know about me. _My_ prayer. Everything there is to know. And?"

Madoka gestures to herself and the shining universe on which they stand.

"This...has always been what I dreamed of, Homura."  _When you protected me, you gave me a chance to heal._  "I've grown, I've suffered, but now I'm here and it's still  _me_. You can't change that without rejecting who I am."

Such unambiguous sentiment hits Homura so hard that Madoka can feel the pain of it. Blood drains from the tall girl's face, leaving behind only a ghost. A shell, still filled with the power of conviction but fatally pierced by epiphany's blade.

"I love you, and...I was..."

"I know," Madoka whispers, guilt constricting her throat. She can't ease Homura's suffering, not without compromising everyone else. Tears run down into her smile. "I'm sorry, Homura. I'm so sorry."

"All I ever wished for was for you to…"

"I know."

The universe halts.

For a neverending moment, there is no battle against entropy, no entropy  _at all_.

Then the colors deepen, solidify. Nebulae spin stars from atomic threads, galaxies knit solar systems into elliptical paths, and gravity pulls once more. Madoka doesn't need to look down at herself to see that her uniform has been replaced by a dress of the brightest white.

Homura watches. Her expression is an event horizon, impossible to explore or understand.

"Madoka."

There's a softness in the word Madoka has never heard before, not in all their timelines and worlds. A quivering, unbreakable note she's never heard from her best friend and strongest foe.

"Tell me. Would you do anything for happiness? For your friends? Your family?" The murmurs drift across eons, almost too faint to hear, yet Madoka feels them in her heart. "What would you do to keep your world safe?"

Madoka closes her eyes. They both know the answer. They've always known. "Become the world itself, so that I can't fail."

Choice made. Path decided.

No going back. Not now. Not ever.

Starlight settles in Homura's eyes, glowing embers in a dying hearth. "Then I have one final question for you, Madoka." The look on her face is love itself as she extends a hand, palm up. "What is the force of a law that can be broken?"

Madoka shakes her head woodenly.  _Don't ask me to do this. Please, Homura._

But there is no question. It's already done.

She tries anyway. "Come join me, Homura. You're part of my world. You always have been." She's never meant words more, but they can have no tangible effect. She has no more power over her best friend than Homura does over her, and even if she had she'd have no right to exert it. "We grew together, and we wouldn't be who we are without each other."

In Homura's other hand an ebony bow materializes. Clasped in the apex of its arc is a soul gem, neither the magical girl's purple diamond nor the demon's sunray chess piece. It's a simple diamond no wider than a fingernail, white shaded with the faintest pink. It blinks once, and Homura is clothed in all black.

"I prove you can be challenged," Homura says. "I prove that you have a weakness, that you can be undone. While I exist, your wish fails." Standing straight, chin lifted, she is defiance itself. "I will make sure of it."

The tide builds within Madoka, deposits her own bow into her gloved hands. The twined branches are alight with pink fire, a blazing bolt already nocked to its ethereal string.

Her Law must be upheld.

Time slows, shivers, stops once more.

Homura moves.

A chime rings out, and eternity vanishes in a rush of searing ice and cleansing light.

###

_Lavender-pink eyes, glittering with all the light in the universe, linger on the curled-up form sobbing before her._

_"Don't do this to yourself."_

_The goddess turns, meets the concern in her friend's eyes._

_"She chose her path." Gloved fingers hook stray blue hairs behind the girl's ear, fingertips brushing her copper_ fortissimo _. "She walked it to the end, and there's no return from that place. You can't wait for her to come back, no more than she could expect you to join her."_

_Turning away from the broken demon, the goddess nods. "Yes."_

_"Then why do you keep coming here?"_

_The goddess rests a hand on her archangel's shoulder. The crusader's cape beneath her touch twinkles with stars. "Sayaka, after everything we've done and all we've been through, how can I not believe in miracles?"_


End file.
